A new season of locally driven works is set to hit the stage this year as part of the Civic Theatre’s UpStage at the Playhouse 2026 season.
The initiative, which supports homegrown producers and playwrights, will bring together returning collaborators and emerging voices for the season, which offers up new writing alongside bold reimaginings.
Spanning four productions across the year, the season showcases comedy, tragedy, family drama and provocative re-examination of classic work, reinforcing the Playhouse as a space where Newcastle stories can be told with ambition and bite.
Occasional Combustible Disaster
12 – 21 March 2026
Local playwright and director Daniel Cottier brings their debut play home to the Playhouse in a darkly funny and deeply affecting coming-of-age story. Set against the ticking clock of the HSC, Occasional Combustible Disaster follows Freddy Ambit, who has just 42 hours to decide whether to confess to a crime before turning 18, or live forever with a deadly secret.
Set in Karuah and steeped in family tension, the play balances humour and heartbreak as Freddy navigates the surprise return of a non-binary sibling and parents locked in relentless domestic arguments. Examining the pressures of adolescence and the fractures within nuclear families, the production marks a significant local milestone for Cottier, a CONDA nominee for Best Director for Punk Rock. Opening night will include a post-show Q&A with the playwright.
The Libertine
2 – 11 July 2026
HER Productions returns to the Playhouse following their acclaimed Romeo and Juliet: A Reimagining with a bold and provocative staging of The Libertine. This darkly comic work explores excess, power and self-destruction through the story of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, a poet and notorious rake at the court of King Charles II.
In a distinctive twist, audiences are invited to experience two versions of the play: one set in its original historical context, and the other a contemporary reimagining featuring a woman as Rochester. Across eight performances, the dual productions interrogate gender, ambition and moral decay, asking how the same story transforms across centuries and bodies. The result is a challenging theatrical conversation that refuses to let audiences look away.
The Whisper
6 – 15 August 2026
Written by award-winning Newcastle playwright Carl Caulfield, The Whisper sees Stray Dogs Theatre Company return to the Playhouse after their 2024 success Karma Kafé. This dark tragi-comedy for the digital age centres on a grieving suburban family unsettled by the arrival of a charming young lodger who bears an uncanny resemblance to their deceased son.
As grief, denial and suspicion collide, the family’s beliefs and values are tested in a world shaped by cognitive dissonance and constant surveillance. With humour threaded through discomfort, The Whisper examines how truth fractures under pressure. Opening night will feature a post-show Q&A with the Stray Dogs Theatre team.
She, Her & I
12 – 21 November 2026
Closing the season is She, Her & I, an original work from Cats in the Cupboard Productions following their much-loved 2025 reimagining of This Restless House. Set during a sweltering Newcastle summer, the play brings three estranged sisters back under the roof of their childhood home as they care for their dying mother.
Tense, funny and emotionally raw, the story unpacks family resentment, grief and reconciliation amid broken air conditioners, bad musical experiments and nicotine addictions. Written by Mikaela Corrigan and directed by Nicholas Pavan, She, Her & I is a deeply local portrait of love, loss and the complicated bonds that refuse to break. Opening night includes a post-show Q&A with the creative team.
